


The Hermit Crabs and the Seagrass

by spidermanhoodie



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: District 4, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Original Character(s), gay love in the districts, he promised he’d keep him alive guys! guys!!!, its literally all original sorry, the names are so cringy bro, theyre fishermen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:20:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24652981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spidermanhoodie/pseuds/spidermanhoodie
Summary: Angler Roswell is a fifteen-year-old from District 4. His family has a history with the Hunger Games, and he would do anything to save his mother from more heartbreak, but when the name of the boy he loves is pulled out of the reaping bowl, their old pact to keep each other alive is dragged out from the mud of severed ties as Angler volunteers.
Relationships: Original Character / Original Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

Water laps at my ankles as I seek out hermit crabs, looking for shells peeking out from beneath the wet sand. It’s humid, and I feel my shirt sticking to my skin. I wipe my forehead with the collar of my shirt, and squint into the water. 

Ha. There. The telltale highlight of a shell dances in the vicious sunlight, and I slowly reach out my hand. I wrap my fingers around the shell, and pull it, dripping, from the water. “Hey, guy,” I say to him, and set him down on my flattened palm, fingers outstretched so he won’t grab at folded skin. He skitters around in my hand manically and I laugh. 

“Did you get one?” calls Cas, running out onto the beach barefoot, with his reaping shirt unbuttoned and his pants pulled up too high. I nod, and hold my hand up so he can see. Cas reaches me and peeks over my fingers to confirm I had caught a crab. 

“You got a name for him yet?” I ask as he tries to jump from my grasp, and I catch him with my other hand. 

“I was thinking Rock.” He holds his hand out for me to give him the crab. I comply. He starts his journey back to the house. 

“Rock, huh?” I ask. “Don’t we have one named Rock already?” 

“No, that’s Boulder,” he reminds me, transferring Rock from hand to hand. I nod, and he looks at me. “Are you okay?” 

I blink, and then realize how tense my body is; my fists are clenched tight, my nails pressing into my palms and my thumb squeezing the knuckle of my index finger. I can practically see the stiffness of my gait. I let out a breath. “Yeah, fine,” I lie. We keep walking.

We turn onto the gravel path that leads to our row of houses; one bedroom wooden blocks with one functioning television and usually, no electricity. Ours is the second on the right. Cas lets himself in and exclaims, “We come bearing a crab!”

I give a faltering smile at my mother, who is cooking something on the stove. She dries her hands on her apron and returns the smile, her eyes empty. “What’s this one’s name?” she asks, leaning over to Cas and ruffling his hair, giving his curls a quick kiss. 

My heart breaks for this woman. We lost my oldest brother to the 40th Hunger Games when I was six years old, and her first love in the 25th. Every reaping morning she convinces herself she’s losing me, too. I give her a hug as Cas tells her his name. 

“Rock,” she says, and nods, trying to smile. She looks at me. “I’ll be fine,” I tell her. She nods, unconvinced. 

Cas kneels down next to the cardboard box on the floor, and I kneel next to him. Inside there is a thick layer of sand, a broken cup, and a broken bowl, the two latter we use as hiding places. In the bowl resides three other hermit crabs, Boulder, Jellyfish, and Seaweed. Cas carefully grabs Rock by the shell and sets him down in the sand. 

The hermit crab thing is a tradition I started in the square during my first reaping. Every morning on reaping day, I go and find a hermit crab. Cas names it. I put it in the box. It settles my nerves, and gives me something to distract me. I think it helps my mother a little, too. “Where’s Dad?” I ask, standing up from where I knelt.

“He went out to get a surprise from the market,” she says. “Nothing huge, but a surprise nonetheless.” 

I give a stiff nod, and look in the pot. “What’s for breakfast?” 

“Half of breakfast is the surprise, half is tesserae bread,” she tells me as she stirs the pot. I assume the surprise is a spread of some sort, or fruit. “This is for dinner.” I sniff. Boiled seaweed.  
The door opens, and my father walks through it. He’s a tall man, with a receding hairline and knuckles covered in fishhook scars. His eyes are tired, but there’s some energy in his eyes that eludes me or my mother this morning. “Hey, kid,” he says to me, and he pulls me into a hug. “Did you dream last night?” I genuinely smile for the first time today. I hardly get to see my father. If there’s one good thing about reaping day, it’s the fact that he and my mother are both off of work. Everything feels calmer.  
“Yes,” I say. 

“What of?” 

“A pair of eyes,” I say. 

“Odd,” he says. “Got your hermit crab?” I nod, and look over to Cas so he can fill him in on what will most likely be an exaggerated version of our morning. 

Cas regales us with wide hand movements and an exuberant amount of stuttering. My father is on one knee before him, nodding frantically at the exciting bits, and I begin to zone out. I think of the eyes. It’s not odd for me to dream of them. They’re not some random pair of eyes, but they’re the same over and over again, familiar eyes. Eyes stacked on a hermit crab, staring at me, unblinking, whispering my name. Angler, Angler, Angler. My heart aches.

Immediately, I snap out of it. 

My father puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “Do you want to see what I got?” I nod, and he walks over to where I’m standing, Cas in tow. He opens the bag, and pulls out a can. He turns it around so I can see the label. Canned Pears.

I grin, and wrap my hand around the can. “Is this real?” 

“Yep,” he said, “I put in a lot of effort to getting that for you. I know it’s your favorite.” I nod, incredulous. “And Cas, I got you this.” He pulls out a very small bag of peppermint candy. His face breaks into a smile and my father is thanked profusely, and everyone’s smiling, and then Cas hugs my father, and says – “I love reaping day!” 

I freeze. Everything comes rushing back in; my brother, seventeen, star swimmer, the crowds parting so he can come through. The axe in his head. Me, six years old, not really understanding.  
I turn and see my mother’s face. It’s pained. She looks like she’s fought in several wars. She catches my eye, and then coughs. “Caspian, button your shirt, please.” 

The walk to the square is long, hot, and nerve-wracking. I pull at my shirt as we go. My reaping attire is the same every year. White shirt, black pants, black shoes. It’s starting to get tight and the pants have risen considerably up my legs; my ankles are on full display. I have to pop my collar for the shirt to fit. My shoes are pinching my toes as I walk, but I soldier through it.  
We come to a stop where I am required to sign in. I get on one knee in front of Cas.  
“Do you have to go now?” he asks, swinging our mother’s hand.

“Yeah, but I’ll be back after the reaping, okay, buddy?” I say, forcing what I hope is a confident smile, and judging by the face he makes, he is not convinced. I sigh. “Pinkie promise,” I add, holding my pinkie up.

“Pinkie promise.” We link fingers. 

I ruffle his hair, stand up, and hug my mother. She kisses me on the forehead. There are tears in her eyes, as there are every year. “I’ll be alright. Do you need me to pinkie promise you too?” I ask, and smile. She shakes her head, pulls me into a second hug. 

I then hug my father, who smells like the sea, and I breathe in deep before pulling away. “You be good, now,” he says, and I nod.

“I’ll see you guys soon, okay?” I say, wave, and then walk towards the line leading up to the sign-in table. It moves fast, as the Peacekeepers direct children to the tables with a forceful swiftness, looming intimidatingly over us. I sign in, and they direct me to the roped-in clump of fifteen-year-old boys. I see a couple kids from school, but none of us are in the talking mood. Lots of nods are thrown around, and an occasional ‘hey’ is thrown out, directed mostly at the ground as we shuffle in place. 

I look at the clock. 1:57. My heart rate quickens. 

I stare at the boy’s glass ball. I’ve been taking tesserae for four people for four years, and cumulatively that equals sixteen times my name is in that ball. Sixteen times out of God knows how many. I think about my older brother. He hadn’t taken any tesserae, and he was seventeen. Seven slips, and one of them resulted in his blood on the victor’s axe. I glance back at the clock, enormous on the front of the Justice Building. 1:59. 

2:00. 

The mayor steps forward, and begins the dreary tale of Panem. I tune it out, and draw in the dirt with my shoe instead, circling the ground over and over and over again until a tiny pit has formed. I continue as he describes the Dark Days, I continue as he describes the purpose of the Games. 

I think about my first reaping, convinced I was off to the Capitol, convinced I was next in my family to go. I remember, somehow, our first hermit crab began crawling up my leg. We were a great distance away from the sea, or at least a great distance to travel as a tiny crab. Hermit crabs are common pets for the citizens of District 4, because they’re everywhere along the shoreline; almost like vermin. I pulled him off my trousers and held him in my hand, the way I’d been taught to hold them since I was little – fingers outstretched, palm up, so he won’t grab hold of your skin. I looked around to see if anyone had lost their hermit crab, but all I saw was the boy standing next to me, smiling down at my hand. I saw his eyes glance up at me, locking into mine. My nerves settled.

The high, eerily jovial voice of Mordecai Palmer jolts me back into reality. I divert my eyes from the hole my foot has dug in the dirt and focus them instead on his neon orange dreadlocks and the way a cloud of orange seems to crawl its way from his eyelids to his temple and then from the tip of his nose to his jawline. He looks ridiculous. 

His speech is over. “Ladies first,” he says, and as he walks to the girl’s ball, the bright orange puffs on his shoulders bounce with each step. I get the urge to laugh, but as he grabs the paper, the urge is gone. He walks back to the microphone. I pray to God it’s not someone I know. 

“Medusozoa Ripcord,” he says. Not someone I know, but as I look to the left to see a disturbance, to see the familiar ripple of the crowd to let the damned through, she emerges from the clump of thirteen-year-olds. I hear the cries of her family. My heart slices clean in two as her mother, or who I assume is her mother, fights against the arms of the man standing next to her. Her arm outstretches to the girl. Medusozoa does not turn, but I see her shaking as she steps towards the stage. Up the stairs. And into the cold, one-way embrace of Mordecai’s skeletal hand to her backbone, directing her to where the female tribute must stand, on the left edge of the stage. I see tears running down her face. Her lips mouth a soliloquy of 'please'.

District 4 is considered a Career district, but not the kind of Career district where those reaped are volunteered for; it’s the kind of Career where at eleven years old, students dedicate half of their gym hour at school to learn how to wield weapons and half of their science hour to survival training. It’s the kind of Career where our arms are strong from offshore fishing and our knots are steady and our swimming skills surpass those of any district. It’s not the kind of Career where our tributes are automatically considered victors. It’s not the kind of Career where it’s an honor to be a tribute. It’s not the kind of Career where she will be replaced. 

And so, her 'please' is met by silence. 

I tense up as Mordecai walks towards the middle of the stage again. He is smiling. His arms are stretched wide. I feel like my head is underwater. Everything is muffled. I don’t hear his remark about the boy’s ball – the same joke every year, you can assume its context – and I don’t hear the clack of the high heels against the wooden floor. I try to calm my head as he reaches his hand into the bowl. He stirs the papers with his index finger, long, bony, unsettling. I think of hermit crabs. He picks a piece of paper out from the middle. I think of the number sixteen, sixteen, sixteen. He opens the slip. I think of those eyes. 

The waves in my head crash. I don’t hear the name, but I know it’s not my name. 

I’m nudged from behind to move. I move, and then I see him. His eyes. 

I think again of hermit crabs. As he walks by me, I think of hermit crabs, climbing up my legs. There are thousands. They are devouring me, and they are crawling into my mouth and I hear his whisper in my ear: Angler, Angler, Angler. My name, over and over again. 

And then there is a strangled cry that is real, and vocal, and it is of my name. “Angler!” I am finally at the surface of the sea and I see him, being held back by Peacekeepers, and he is crying for me, and I cry out for him. 

My head is strangled. I cannot let him die. 

I cannot let him die. 

I cannot let him die. 

My mouth moves, and my hand raises, and I’m volunteering.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s dark in the goodbye room. I have somehow convinced myself no one will come. I promised Cas that I would be okay, and I broke that promise on my own accord. They won’t understand why I volunteered for a boy they have never seen. I take my friends home sometimes, and as a family they play cards with us, and listen to my father’s stories. I never took him home.

They must hate me. They must detest me for breaking their hearts. 

The door opens, and I jump to my feet. There’s Cas. Oh, God, there’s Cas, and he’s sobbing, and there’s snot running down his upper lip, and it’s disgusting, and I pull him into my arms faster than I ever have. With horror, it dawns on me that he is going to grow up how I did; brother gone, brother dead, brother with an axe in his head. All I can think to say is, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I’m sorry.” 

I hear a sniffle from above me, and it’s my mother. I give Cas a really quick kiss on the forehead and then I rise to greet her. Her eyes are empty, but there are tears running down her cheeks. “Mom,” I gasp, and I grab her hand, and she hugs me. 

“I love you,” she says, and I feel her body begin to shake from huge sobs. She gasps for air, and says, “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,” and I say, “I love you more,” and she says, “That’s impossible,” and I’m sobbing, ugly sobbing, gut-wrenching tears that I can’t seem to stop and then she lets go. “You’re the brightest star in the sky,” she says. 

And I believe it. 

My father pulls my arm, and I turn around, and I say, “I’m sorry,” and he smiles slightly before I throw myself into his chest. He smells like the sea, and oh my God, that smell is one I will never get to smell again so I worship it and I breathe deeply into his shirt. 

“I love you,” I mumble. 

Cas hugs me, too. My mother hugs me from behind. 

“That boy,” I begin, but my mom says, “shh.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, and try to explain again. “He –”

“Your time is up,” comes a voice from outside and then the Peacekeeper is pulling my mother and Cas away from me and I’m just crying, “I love you,” over and over and over again.  
And then the room is empty once more. The door is shut. I begin to hyperventilate. 

How will I go? Will it be quick? Will I die from an axe, just like my brother did? Will it be slow, dying of dehydration, crawling my way from point A to point B? Will I give myself away with my nightmares? Will I burn to death? Will I get mauled by mutts? Will I freeze to death? Will I die alone or at the hands of somebody else? Will I die thinking of him? I wipe my sweaty palms on the upholstery of the couch. 

I can’t breathe. Why did I volunteer? 

But I know the answer. 

Two years ago, we were both thirteen years old; we were working as deckhands that summer on a fishing boat operated by Peacekeepers. There was no pay for anyone under sixteen, but there were consistent meals, which I didn’t have at home. Sure, it was usually just bread made from the brown grain provided as tesserae, but it was consistent. Three meals a day. 

The boat was old, rickety, and unarmed, and we would travel dangerously close to the militarized zones of Greater Colombia. By night, in our respective hammocks, the crew would joke about being held hostage by Colombian seamen and how much better of a life we would have in their hands. We played poker, using broken seashells as chips by the flickering lights in the hull. Me and him talked in lingering eye contact and shared laughs at other people’s jokes. We only spoke in the dead of night when everybody else had nodded off. Harsh whispers across the small aisle that separated our hammocks. The silenced snickers. The clambering to touch hands, clasping my fingertips in his, straining to maintain the innocent intimacy between us. 

One night, the ship went dark. Everyone awoke with a start, the clock having just ticked beyond the witching hour, and we all spoke in alarmed murmurs. Somehow, the rumors made it around to the deckhands. We had entered a militarized zone. The Peacekeeper steering the vessel had nodded off. We had a very slim chance of making it out unscathed. I heard this, and I glanced back at him. He was shaking. 

He asked to come sit by my hammock. I let him climb into the hammock with me. He whispered my name, three times. Angler, Angler, Angler. I repeated his. 

Ridley, Ridley, Ridley. 

“Angler,” he says. The door is open. I didn’t hear it open, and here he is, right in front of me. 

“Ridley,” I say, breathlessly. And then he pulls me into the tightest hug. 

“You didn’t have to,” he whispers into my ear. I pull back. 

“I did,” I say. There are tears streaming down his face. I grab his head and I kiss him on the cheek, his tears salty on my lips. 

“I’m sorry for everything, I was just –”

“Rid, I don’t care,” I say, and I laugh, just a little bit. My palms cup his face. “I’m so happy you came.” 

“I didn’t know if I was welcome,” he says, sniffing. 

“You’re always welcome,” I tell him. And then I kiss him, on the lips. Once, twice, three times. What do I have to lose? This is the last time I will ever see him.

He pulls away. “My time is almost up,” he says. 

“I love you,” I say. And I hug him, tight, and he picks me up, and he whispers in my ear, “Stay alive.” 

This baffles me. We both know I won’t. My muscle mass is average, and I’m young. I have no particular skill in combat. 

He sets me down, and looks at me. With those eyes. My heart aches. “I will do everything I can to keep you alive,” he says. “I promise,” he adds. His eyes are wide, almost like a puppy. My eyes fill with tears.

“What can you do?” I say, quietly, broken. 

“Everything I can,” he says, grabbing my hand. “It’s our pact, remember? You promised. I promised.” 

That night, on the boat, he had been shaking in fear. I had my arms wrapped around him, stroking his hair. He picked his head up from my chest, and he whispered, “Angler, would you keep me safe?”  
I had to think for a moment about what he meant. Right now? Absolutely. In the future? Most definitely. Would I die for him? That’s a tricky question. “What do you mean?” I asked, looking at him. He had been shorter than me then by a considerable amount. He shrugged, and said, “Would you keep me alive?” 

I still didn’t quite understand him, but he looked terrified. I nodded. I brushed my hand through his hair, my heart feeling every bit of thirteen-year-old love it could, and I said, “Yes.” 

“Do you promise?” he pressed on. 

I smiled down at him. “I promise.”

He blinked, and the corners of his mouth twitched upward. “I would keep you alive, too,” he said. He took a breath and settled his head back on my chest before he said, “I will never let you die. I promise.”

I laid back, resting my head on the damp cloth of the hammock, and I whispered, “I will not let you die.” 

We stayed like that the rest of the night, until finally, the lights of the vessel turned back on, and we were, miraculously, safe. We made a break for District 4 in the morning.

I look at him, and everything he is. There is nothing he can do. He doesn’t have enough money to send me a loaf of bread, let alone anything that could set me above any other tribute. The odds were not looking good, but I didn’t want to break his heart so soon. 

“Okay,” I say. And he kisses me. 

“I love you,” he whispers into my lips. My heart stirs, just slightly, and then the Peacekeeper is at the door, and he is gone.


	3. Chapter 3

Mordecai is even more unbearable in person. 

The minute me and Medusozoa are out of the car, he is there with pitying eyes and congratulations for our bravery. He turns to me, pokes me in the chest, and says, “Especially for your bravery, son.”  
I blink. “Thank you,” I say. But I know there was no bravery involved. It was all selfish. I needed Ridley alive; I can’t imagine a world where he is not breathing, where his blood is on someone else’s hands. Now, I’m going to die in a world knowing he loves me, or I’m going to live and see him again. The former is much more likely than the latter, but I try not to think about that. 

Mordecai shepherds us onto the platform, and there is a sleek metallic train whirring in front of us. My heart begins to beat, more rapidly than before, as I realize that there is no going back. This is goodbye forever to the only place I’ve ever lived. Mordecai must sense my uneasiness because he wraps his hand around my upper arm and practically begins to drag me towards the entryway. I steal a last glance at my district – given that the part of District 4 we’re in I have never seen before – and then my shoes have surpassed each step and I am on the train. And oh, my God. 

All of the furniture and the gentle decoration that is littered among this train car reeks of elegance, so much so I am repulsed. I get the sudden urge to vomit as I am led inside and into a plush red armchair. I stare at the floor, which is hardwood, and shined so I can see my reflection. 

I look ruined. My hair is frizzy and everywhere, and I pluck a single brown leaf from the brown tresses. Flicking it away, the nausea I experienced before eases slightly. I lift my head to look around the train car. There are pastries on a table behind where Medusozoa sits in a similar armchair. My stomach rumbles. I glance over at Mordecai, who is humming as he butters himself a roll. He gives me a smile.  
I clear my throat. He looks back up at me. “Are we…” I point at the food. 

“Yes, by all means, it’s for you!” says our escort, and he sets the roll down to lead me over to the pastries. “Those there are crumpet –” he points a long bony finger at their plate – “that is a raspberry scone, those are delicious, you simply must try one; and there’s pound cake which is absolutely delectable –”

I tune him out from that point forward. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this much food on just one table – and by the way Mordecai spoke of them, they must all be appetizers. Something inside me begins to get a little bit excited. I grab a plate and begin helping myself to everything he pointed out and a couple other things I was interested in. 

Before sitting down, though, I stopped in front of Medusozoa’s armchair. 

“Medusozoa?” I say, timidly, to get her attention. She stirs from her state of disassociation, but does not look up. I try again. “Medusozoa?” 

“It’s Zoa,” she squeaks. 

I smile. “Zoa, do you want anything? I’ll get it for you,” I offer. She shrugs her shoulders, which I take as a yes, so I fill up another plate of muffins and rolls and scones and set it down on her armrest, stabling it there before walking away. 

The door to the car opens, and in come a man and a woman. The man I recognize from the 38th Hunger Games, the last victor from District 4. The woman I do not recognize, but I assume she’s probably a victor as well. She is slightly older than the man, and I’m guessing she left victorious somewhere in the 10s and 20s of the Games. These are our mentors.

Mordecai stands and confirms my suspicions as he exclaims, “Yes, yes, the District 4 mentors for this year’s Games – Angler, this is your mentor, Baffin Hull –” the man lifts his hand in gentle greeting – “and Medusozoa, this is your mentor, Meerschaum Tucker.” They share a synchronized nod in the other’s direction. 

Baffin claps me on the shoulder as he walks by. He pulls a chair from the table and drags it up beside my armchair, and leans in as if he were a third year telling me a secret. “I’m betting on you, boy,” he says in a whisper. 

I whip my head around and get a good look at him. He can’t be older than 20 or 30, but he looks like he’s aged centuries since his Games. His face is wrinkled and sullen, and his mouth is twisted on his face as if he is consistently sucking on something sour. He gives me a faint smile and I settle back into my chair. 

Mordecai leads me and Zoa into two compartments across the hall from each other, and there we are greeted with small living quarters and closets full of clothes, made of the finest textiles in all of Panem. I find myself stroking the fabric of a t-shirt, noting its similarities to my fishing clothes back home. The light and textured complexion of its skin reminds me strongly of stormy nights on an unforgiving ocean, of paddling in the shallow among the mangroves, of the feeling of seagrass against my toes. 

I put the shirt on, gray in color and baggy in build, and match it with a pair of comfortable denim pants. I pull a pair of socks and a pair of canvas shoes on and leave the compartment door open on my way out. 

The rest of the day, Baffin talks me through as much of the Games he can as I sample every bit of food I can. We discuss my strengths, and my weaknesses. My strengths? I can handle a spear, or a trident. Swimming. Fishing. Trapping. All not very useful in most of the previous arenas of the Games; the first eighteen Games all took place in the same arena, and the later arenas followed biomes of northern nature except for the 31st, which was a desert. I would not last a day in a desert. 

He leans back, and sizes me up. “How much do you weigh?” 

“I wager about 140, 145 pounds?”

“Good, good, we can use that,” he says, standing up and grabbing a cup, setting it under a jug on the table and filling it to the brim with orange juice. He nods his head and lifts his cup in my direction. “I have a question that might be a little bit touchy,” he says. My heart rate increases. 

“Okay,” I say. 

“That kid you volunteered for,” he says. 

I nod. 

He takes a sip of orange juice. “Who is he?” 

I turn around, looking out the window. The sky turns a golden cream, and I watch as the sun glitters like egg yolk in candlelight. Who is he? I close my eyes. I picture his face.

“Ridley Marvell,” I say. 

“I know his name, kid, I watched the reaping,” he says. “What– ” he pauses, sighing – “What is the relationship between you two?”

“Huh?” I say, trying not to flinch. 

“Angler.” He leans forward. “I’m trying to help you.” 

I look out the window again, watching the world go by. I bite my lip. “Ridley and I…,” I begin, and then words get caught in my throat. I decide to go with the truth. “I’m not sure what we were,” I confess, my face flushing as I say it. I feel like a little girl admitting to her father that she has a crush.

“Angler, I know this is touchy, but telling me could boost your odds. What do you have to lose?” I glance at the floor. “And it might get you sponsored. The Capitol has all sorts of characters, kid, and some of those characters might sympathize with you.” He takes another gulp of his juice before he adds, “So, tell me, what was your relationship?” 

He’s right. I don’t have anything to lose. But Ridley does.

I think back to the day his father caught us together, just a few months ago. We were alone under the guise that I was teaching him how to spearfish, out in his backyard. Ridley’s family is one of the main providers of fishing materials to the private fisheries of the district, and we had borrowed a spear, promising to bring it right back. He told me that the deeper we climbed into the mangroves, the more hidden we would be from his father’s eye. We climbed along the mangrove roots, my hand in his, laughing as we went. I remember the way I stuck the spear in the sand as we kissed, children who had matured too fast; I remember the way his father held Ridley’s head underwater as I cried and pulled at his arm, begging him to stop. I remember the bruise I developed after he socked me in the jaw, and the bruises Rid developed all over his face in a cartographical pattern. I remember the absolute radio silence we shared in the months following, until this morning.  
Ridley has his life to lose, just like I do, and I promised I’d keep him alive. 

“I don’t know what we were,” I reinstate, this time firmer. I take the pause that follows as an opportunity to stand and pour myself a cup of coffee.

“Kid, I know you knew,” he says. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull by not telling, but I know you knew.”

“I’m trying to keep him alive,” I say, pursing my lips tight. 

Baffin sighs. “Telling me won’t kill him.” 

“You don’t know that,” I say, sitting back down in my armchair, avoiding his eye contact. 

Baffin leans in to keep talking, but then Mordecai walks into the train car and announces with an air of grandeur, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are approaching the Capitol!” 

I instinctively jump to the window, delighted to have an excuse to avoid Baffin’s interrogative line of questioning. Zoa stands beside me. 

The Capitol comes into view, miraculously beautiful, with its enormous dams. The freshwater spray released from the waterfalls of the dams alone could quench the thirst of every man, woman, and child in every one of the Districts for a year. The electricity provided by the dam could keep every District’s lights on for months without fault, but the Capitol needs over four times as much power to make it through a day than all the Districts combined, and yet we are the ones with shortages. 

But the incredible way the light dances on the Capitol’s magnificent glass buildings dismisses any thoughts of the Games and the unfairness of Panem from my mind. For a minute, I can only admire its beauty. 

And then it hits me – I’m never going home. 

My eyes well with tears. What’s the point of lying on Rid’s behalf? I’ve protected him enough. I volunteered for him. I saved his life. And besides, if Baffin’s right, and me telling him what happened between us might save mine, then this is him returning the favor. It’s not like his father doesn’t know. Maybe this will make him understand. I turn back to Baffin, and sit down. 

“It was romantic,” I say, grabbing my coffee from the table. “His father ripped us apart.”

Baffin nods, sitting back. “That,” he says, “is one hell of a backstory to the Capitol, kid.”


	4. Chapter 4

This is hell. I think I have died and gone to hell. 

They have waxed all the peach fuzz on my face and all the hair from my body; I have been scrubbed completely free of any kind of grit; my nails have been sanded down to the beds and coated with a clear polish; my hair has been taken from its ponytail and the rope it had been pulled back with was discarded. 

My prep team consists of three men; one, named Kraken, skin stenciled with deep blue tentacles and hair done up in eight blue spikes like an octopus; the second, named Reign, whose skin is golden and eyes are a deep, royal purple; and the third named Orion, whose skin is a rich, dark brown and littered with silver dots. 

They have arrived at the difficult task of managing my hair. My hair is long, fashioned in an large tuft, and I usually tie it back out of my face; but they are telling me now that from years of tying it back, exposing it to saltwater, and not washing it as frequently as I should have been has made it dry, brittle, and has made their job monumentally harder. I almost laugh at the idea that it wasn’t the prepping children for slaughter part that makes their job hard; no, it’s the hair of a poor kid from District 4 which is just slightly damaged. Aw, boohoo. Get a different job then. 

But I keep my thoughts to myself. Somehow, they think they’re helping me, even if all they’re benefiting is themselves. I have to let them have something, especially since I’m going to die soon.

They gossip about the other tributes. Last night, Zoa and I watched the reapings, which is never fun to begin with, but knowing that it’s us that are being pitted against these other kids did not make it easy for me to keep my supper down. 

“I heard District 1 has been training those kids since birth,” says Orion, coating his hands in some kind of conditioning lotion and running it through my hair. Yeah, no shit, they’ve been training their kids. They trained District 4, too, but more as a protective measurement. Losing your kids to the Games when you can save them is never the best route; parents like to believe that they’ve done all that they can. All my years of working for private fisheries, as well as in-school combat training, has given me slightly better odds, since I know how to handle selective bits of weaponry. It doesn’t help to know that the other Careers are a lot bigger and tougher than we are. 

Orion begins to aggressively massage my skull like he is beating it. I flinch, and he continues on his speech, “The absolute monster from District 1 scared even me when he volunteered.” This is accompanied by a pinch in my scalp. I flinch, assuming that was some kind of injection. 

“I’d let him kill me anytime,” says Kraken, who is rubbing my legs with an orange foam. I have to choke back a scowl.

I think back to who they’re referencing. District 1 male tribute. His name and profile surfaces in my mind. Mica something, with blonde locks that fall to his wide shoulders, standing at a height of at least six feet. His muscles rippled when he shook hands with the female tribute, also a volunteer but who paled just looking at him. He is definitely going to be a favorite of the Capitol when he inevitably wins, passed around like a roast pig. Any hope of mine going back to Ridley faded when he raised his hand. 

“The relaxing solution should solve the problem for us for today, but we should try an extra bit of conditioner,” sighs Orion, and snaps his fingers at Reign. “Hand me that conditioning oil, please, love,” he says, stretching his hand out to receive the bottle. “This is the last of it, then our final rinse,” he says to me, and after dumping half the bottle out on his slender hands, he begins to lather it into my hair. 

“I personally wanted to shave the lot of it off, but Aristotle insisted on leaving it,” Orion informs me as he tackles my other leg with the orange foam.

If they had shaved my head, I would have killed every last one of them. I remind myself they could slaughter my entire family, so I hold my strategy of lying there like a brick wall. 

Instead of killing them, I think. Aristotle, I have been informed, is my stylist. For the opening ceremonies, I am to be dressed in respect to the industry of my district, which is, of course, fishing. I remember last year, the tributes of District 4 were decked out in full deep-sea fishing garb – I can tell the stylist was trying to go for a streetwear look with the enormous yellow raincoats and tall rubber boots, but all they did was make the starving and terrified tributes look ten times smaller than they already were. I sincerely hope they demoted him to a lesser district. 8. 9. 12. 

I don’t believe I’ll get sponsors anyway. Unless Baffin was right about the Capitol being different from home. While I’m sure this prep team is doing wonders with me, I’m positive that I couldn’t even make a dent in the poor romantic hearts of the Capitol’s girls (and possibly boys), and thus wouldn’t be able to tap into their pockets. My smile sits crooked on my face and my cheeks and eyes are sunken into my skull; my skin is littered with light freckles and acne so stubborn that no homemade remedy could excavate it. The thought occurs to me what they could do with me, what they could do for my body, what they could improve. Maybe I’m already different. I try to turn my head to the mirror on the wall across from me, but my head is quickly snatched back into place. 

Reign leans down to my ear. “I assure you, you look amazing,” he says. 

I decide I like him the most. 

They rinse me down one last time, and they towel me down until the relentless drip of water from my body finally ceases. They take a towel to my hair, and fashion a sort of wrap around it so the towel sits on top of my head. I feel completely clean. Untouched, like a bar of soap fresh out of its wrapping. They let me put on a paper-thin robe and I am instructed to stand there, unmoving, until Aristotle gets here. They leave the room, giddy as if incredibly proud of their work, and I step forward to get a good look of myself in the mirror. 

My skin, once ashy and pimpled, is now clear and shining like honey. My hands have been erased of their fishhook scars, and the long cut from spearfishing that ran from my ankle to my calf is now nothing but a slight crease in my skin. My hair has been reduced to tight curls.

They did leave my freckles, though. I run my fingers over them, over the bridge of my nose, the underside of my eyes, over my forehead, under my chin, down my neck, over my shoulders. They are alive like scattered ashes from a lit fireplace, and I silently thank my prep team; I’ve kept one piece of myself through all of this. 

The door opens, and a man I can only assume to be Aristotle comes in. The first thing I notice is his sandals, built of a rectangular base, probably made of leather, and attached to his foot with a thin golden lace that wraps around his legs up to his knees. The second thing I notice is his age – wrinkles crawl from his eyes to his temple and his skin sags under his chin. Usually, the citizens of the Capitol elect to have surgical procedures done to hide their age, but this man seems to have embraced this attribute, and I realize I respect him because of it, just slightly.

He holds his hand out for me to shake, and I do, and he smiles. Catching my confusion at that, he says, “Usually they don’t.” 

“Don’t what?”

“Accept my hand,” he tells me. He then takes me by the arm and leads me to a second door, this time leading into a room containing a couch and two armchairs, a television screen, a mirror, a small table, and a clothing rack with two zippered bags hanging from it. He gestured for me to sit down, and I took a seat in the armchair. 

Aristotle takes a slim piece of metal off the table, and turns on the television. The screen just focuses on the inside of a fish tank. I glance back at him quizzically, and he laughs. “They thought that showing programming that has something to do with the product of your District would be comforting to you,” he explains. 

“I don’t know if it’s working,” I say. He turns it off.

A server walks in and silently hands him a glass of red wine. They both look at me expectantly. 

“Uh,” I begin, but I hesitate. “Coffee? With milk?” 

The server nods and leaves the room.

“So,” says Aristotle. I nod. He continues, “For the Opening Ceremonies, we’ve decided that the best way to dress you would be to – how do I put this – to recreate the wonders of the ocean.” 

This surprises me. “So…” 

“So, you don’t have to worry about going before the Capitol in fishing garb,” he says. I exhale, and he smiles. “The stylist from last year was new, and he was demoted to District 11.” I knew it. “I was promoted from 9.” I try to recall what they were wearing last year, but I blank. He continues, “The best way to explain what you will be wearing – hm. It’s actually slightly funny, I’m sure you’ll know what I’m talking about; do you know of a fish called the anglerfish?”

Of course I fucking do. That’s my name. I picture a fishing pole-type contraption fixed onto my head, dangling a lightbulb in front of my face. 

“Yeah,” I answer, dread pooling in my stomach. 

“What’s funny is, we’ve been planning this for months,” he says, chuckling slightly. “And you volunteer – Angler. Anglerfish.” 

“I get the joke,” I say. It’s not intended to come across as harsh, but it’s dripping with edge as it passes my lips. It returns his face to its sullen state. 

“Right,” he says. The servant returns, and hands me the coffee I asked for. I take a sip, and almost flinch at how bitter it is, but I do not ask for any kind of sweetening. “Right,” he repeats, and sets his wine down on the table before us as he stands. “So, let’s get you dressed.” 

The base layer of the costume consists of a black tunic with navy blue and dark purple accenting and black pants, the knees of the pants patched with a gentle, deep orange. The tunic has tassels along the sleeves. There is a large piece that rests on my shoulders, spiked and attached to the tunic using a complicated pin system that I didn’t quite understand. Then, the prep team returns to decorate my eyelids with orange powder that curls in a spiral beneath my eyebrow and to cover my face in a golden dust that sparkles in the light. 

The headpiece is brought in on a tray. It isn’t, as I had previously thought, a lightbulb attached to a pulley system, but instead a black crown (also adorned in dark spikes) that circles my head. The ‘light’ of the fish getup is instead a veil of a light, glittering orange. My shoes are black and wedged, covered in indigo straps. 

I look in the mirror. 

My face looks stunning, perfect, and appears to be illuminated by the veil. The skin of my face glitters. My body is a different story; the spikes are petrifying and magical. They make me look ruthless. Scary, even. The boots make me taller than I ever have been. The piece on my shoulders almost gives the impression of a black throne behind me. 

I am beautiful. 

I am terrifying. 

I am then shepherded down several hallways. A right, then a left, then a right, then straight for a bit, then two lefts and a right and then I lost count. We go through a door that I have to duck to fit through, and we are there, in the stable room. I am led to a horse. Zoa is there. 

Surprisingly, we are not dressed the same. She depicts what I guess is supposed to be a rainbowfish, her dress knee-length and silver, beneath a cape covered in glittering iridescent diamonds. Her eyelids are decorated in the same pattern as mine, but in every shade of the rainbow. Her body is coated in silver glitter, and her silver-tipped headdress is smaller than mine, but reminds me strongly of the spines of a fish. I don’t want to tell anybody that rainbowfish are freshwater fish, and that we don’t fish them, let alone see them. But whatever. She looks pretty. 

I hear whispers, so I turn, and I see the other tributes. They are staring at me. I flush, and turn back away. I probably look ridiculous to them. Any confidence I had disintegrates. I envy Zoa and her rainbow getup. At least she isn’t covered in spikes. 

Aristotle helps me onto the chariot. I stumble getting on, my enormous boots making me misjudge my own height and I clamp onto Aristotle’s robed arm for support as I trip. Finally, I am in the chariot, standing on the left. Zoa’s stylist just picks her up and sets her on my right. She looks stricken.

“Are you alright?” I ask her in a whisper. 

“Yes,” she says. “Are you?” 

“I can hardly stand, I don’t know how I’m going to survive this chariot ride,” I say, and she smiles, just a little bit. It’s enough for me. 

I focus my eyes ahead. 

They count us down, and the enormous doors open, basking the room in a golden glow from the lights of the runway and the sunset beyond the President’s house. I can only see his slender figure from here; white hair. White suit. Sitting in a chair on the very center of the balcony. This is the closest I’ve ever been to the man, and I will only get closer tonight. It jars me back to where I stand. District 1 and its snowy white horses have already departed. District 2 takes off as I watch, and then District 3, and then the ground beneath me is shifting and we are off. 

It is exactly as hard as I pictured to keep my footing secure, and I have rooted my hands to the front of the chariot. I lift my eyes. 

They are cheering. They are all cheering for us. 

Thousands and thousands of people on the stands, dressed more ridiculously than I am by tenfold, cheering for our slaughter. But at least we look pretty. At least we are brave. At least we are only sacrifices, not victims. 

I force my eyes up. I force myself to unclench my fist from the chariot and wave into the audience. I force myself to smile. I try to think of Ridley at home, desperately watching for a glance of me. I try to think of Cas, crying at the sight of me. I try to imagine I am throwing kisses to them. I am reassuring them. I’m okay, I think. I promise. 

The chariot finishes its ride, and we circle around beneath the balcony, our blue-painted horses following a well-rehearsed path into where we must park. I look up, and there he is, in the flesh. President Snow. 

He cannot be older than 50 or 60, but he looks beyond his years. He wears a sly, empty smile, and I realize how afraid of him I am. He opens his mouth to speak, and I look to the larger screens to look at his face, at his puffed lips and his black eyes. I don’t hear a word of his speech. I am frozen in place, in fear. 

He looks down, over the tributes, and the camera cuts to our faces. I watch him on the balcony, and his eyes, those cold, empty eyes, fixate on me. His smile broadens. 

“Thank you,” he says, fixing his eyes back on the screen. “For your courage and your sacrifice.” He then leans down slightly and pulls a glass of red wine into view. He lifts it. “To the 49th Annual Hunger Games!” 

The response of the crowd is a deafening roar of appreciation. I do not know if I am supposed to clap, but I don’t. Neither do any of the tributes that are in my immediate eyeline. But, I do catch a glimpse of the District 1 tribute, Mica, grinning like a maniac as the crowd cheers. His eyes flutter shut, and I try to imagine what he’s picturing. Crowds cheering for him, cheering his name. Roses thrown. Kisses blown. His district, welcoming him with gifts and glory. I picture him towering above me, holding a sword, ready to slit my throat. 

I blink, and look away.


	5. Chapter 5

I wake up the next morning at sunrise. The rays of the sun bathing over my quarters is comforting; waking up this early is reminiscent of home. I lay in bed for a little bit longer, basking in the warmth of this unfamiliar duvet. I feel the fabric underneath my fingers, soft and welcoming. I feel very different from how I should be feeling; I feel almost safe. I close my eyes, and stretch my arm over the empty bed beside me. I pretend the warmth that I find there is his warmth. I pretend he is there, beside me, asleep. 

It’s this that finally pulls me out of bed. I’m being ridiculous. If I ever want to sleep beside him again then I have to get ready, now, before I’m late to training. 

I stand, and stretch. I usually stretch in the morning, but my limbs are more asleep than they have ever felt, and my joints crack with every movement. After a few minutes, I feel more aware of where I am, and with that, fear begins to build in my stomach, a physical pain that sends my head spinning. 

Get yourself together, Angler, I think, pulling the back of my hand to my mouth. Well, easier said than done. I’m going to see the tributes in action today, and I know they all want me dead. They could very easily kill me today. Of course, they’d be dead milliseconds after, but they could. 

Get yourself together. 

I stand, and turn the sink on to wash my face. I undress, and step into the shower. I tried this thing last night, and the almost unlimited amount of possible soaps and scents and temperatures amused me greatly. This morning, I try to distract myself by playing a game – I close my eyes and randomly select buttons on the panel that is mounted on the wall, and force myself to stick out the rest of the shower with those same settings. I end up with high-pressured shower jets almost attacking me, so strong that they send me leaping forward, laughing. The temperature where I stand is mild, but when I stretch my hand up to the faucet, the water is very hot, and at my feet, the water is almost freezing cold. The water smells sickeningly sweet, and is almost bright pink in color. I randomly selected the soaps too – a thick red shampoo that I actually love the smell of, a bar of green soap that has little grits of sugar in it, a clear something described as “foot wash”, which, when lathering over the soles of my feet, almost slip in the shower and kill myself before any of the others could. By the time I leave the shower, I feel a lot better.

The bath mat blow-dries me as if by magic, and I dry my hair with a little divot in the wall, the currents running through my veins. I leave the room, walking into the closet. There’s a screen that enables me to select an outfit. There are filters; clothes for running, for climbing, for weight-lifting. I don’t know what to pick out. I figure ‘running’ is the best option for me – it seems all-encompassing. I really don’t have a plan for today.

The clothes appear on two silver hangers. A shirt that is grey and made of a slightly thicker textile than the fabric of the shirt I wore on the train. The pants are tight and black, barely long enough to graze my knees, and I’m incredibly uncomfortable with the way they grip my legs, so I individually pick out a pair of shorts from the closet and put them on in place of the pants. I figure this is fine.  
I exit my room and meet Baffin’s eyes. He is fiddling with a rope, tying monkey knots with his fingers over and over again. He looks tired. No, tired is an understatement; he looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks. 

I feel like I haven’t slept in weeks. 

“Hello,” I say as I sit down, looking down at the plethora of food on the table. 

He lets out a breath. “Hi,” he says gravely, and sets the rope down. “I have something to tell you.” 

I bite into a roll and ask, mouth full, “What?” 

“Medusozoa is dead,” he says. 

I choke on what I am chewing, and I frantically struggle for air before I cough up the roll that got stuck in my throat. “What?” 

“That’s all I’m allowed to say,” he says. 

How can she possibly be dead? Did one of the tributes kill her? I put my face in my hands as I think. Why would the tributes target her? She’s one of the youngest, if not the youngest in this year’s games. She is hardly old enough to have begun working back home. She probably wouldn’t know what to do with a spear if she was handed one. She’s no threat. Maybe they’re specifically targeting District 4. But there’s no reason for them to do that. And besides, how would they have bypassed security and got to our floor? 

It occurs to me that that maybe the Capitol did this, that maybe she angered them in some way. But that also doesn’t make sense. She’s too young to do something bad enough to warrant execution. Maybe her family did something. But then, why wouldn’t they wait to do it for when she was in the arena, when they could have fun with it? There’s no reason for her to be dead. It just doesn’t make sense. 

Baffin finally breaks my train of thought by greeting Mordecai, who kisses him on the cheek, making Baffin recoil slightly. 

“So tragic to hear of the premature death of your district partner,” he says to me, a mini-speech so well-rehearsed it makes me want to kill him. Then, to Baffin, he says, “It’s the strangest thing, I tried to go onto the roof this morning to watch the sun rise, but I was barred from going through the door! And I insisted they let me through, but they shoved me down the hallway and told me to go about my business.” He continues chattering, but I tune him out as I think. 

The roof is closed. I had figured it was before, but I guess it’s open to all staying in the tribute center. I picture the height of this building, and it finally dawns on me what happened.  
“Oh my God,” I mutter under my breath, as I picture her body in bits on the ground. I make it to the trash can in time to vomit up the meager amount of food I had left in my stomach. Suddenly, Baffin is there, holding my hair back. When I come up for air, I look at him, confused. “We have to keep you camera-ready,” he whispers in my ear.

And that is officially too much for me. I grab a napkin, wipe my mouth, snatch another roll from the table, and get on the elevator. I press the button that closes the doors and back into the corner, holding my hands to my forehead. Medusozoa is dead. 

Some sick part of me manages to think that at least now, I don’t have to kill her. At first, I reject that thought with my whole body, but the more I think about that, the more it brings me relief. She died on her own terms, which just makes me think that she’s a lot smarter than all of us. Her death was most likely less gory than it would have been, and not publicly broadcasted. Maybe she even left a note for her family. And besides, in the arena, someone is going to have to actively kill her. I feel like her death has just grounded me into the reality of what is about to happen. 23 kids are going to die.

One less kid for me to kill. 

As other kids get in the elevator, I center myself. I try to purge Zoa from my mind. Maybe if I survive, her family will be better off. They will, actually. The Capitol will give my whole district gifts, food other than fish, sweets of colors they’ve never seen. I try to imagine the faces of starving children when I return home. 

Maybe I can survive. 

As soon as I enter the training room, though, my hopes sink very quickly. They give us a speech once everyone has arrived, and then we are dismissed to go to the different stations. 22 kids, about half of which worse than me, and half of which better; eleven who I don’t know if I’d have the heart to kill, and eleven that I could only hope to kill. I see them all, girls agile and cunning, vicious and strong, boys with no remorse and a thirst for blood, but also girls shuffling their feet as they try to pick a station, boys unable to hold themselves to a net. 

I take a few deep breaths. C’mon, Angler, I think. Pick a station. 

I decide to go to what I’m worst at, which is probably either fire starting or axe work, as I’ve never had any reason to do either of those things. I start at fire starting, staying there for about half an hour before shifting to edible plants, where I know only the swamp-mangrove-saltwater plants. The instructor is used to District 4’s really narrow knowledge of different environments, so he prioritizes me, running me through different plants until I’ve memorized almost everything edible across the board, from tundra to grasslands. It gives me a little bit more confidence, enough for me to move to a combat station. 

I pick the axe work station, and the instructor tells me how to hold the axe, how to prepare to throw it, how to stand and how to swing and how to focus all my strength into combat. With physical skills, I’m not that fast a learner, but by lunchtime I’m able to handle the “medium” level of difficulty somewhat competently in the course, only ‘dying’ to a long-range shooter that the axe couldn’t reach. 

I walk into the other room, limbs tired from the physical exertion. I pick a seat at the table that is as far in the corner as I can get. I’m staring at my hands, and I’m thinking of Zoa, and then I feel the weight of the wooden bench I’m sitting on shift slightly, and there is hot breath on my neck. 

I don’t let myself turn. 

“Hey, 4,” he says. “Where’s your district partner?” He slings an arm around my shoulder and the hair on my arms stand up. 

I consider my answer. It rolls around on my tongue for a moment before I say, “Dead.” 

He laughs. He is fucking laughing. I look at him, District 1, Mica. He grins at me before he says, “Well, now you don’t have to kill her.” He grabs a turkey leg from the center of the table and rips into it with his teeth. 

The girl from District 1 and District 2 spot him and sit down across from us. 

“Hey,” says the girl from 2, and the boy from 2 nods at me. The girl from District 1 grins toothily, and extends her hand across the table. I hesitate, then take it.

“I’m Rosalyn,” she says. “That’s Mica –” Mica raises his hand – “Hardon –” the boy from 2 – “and Circus.” Circus smiles. 

“You’re obviously confused,” says Mica. 

I squint at him. He smiles in response, and then Circus leans over the table and grabs a fistful of my hair. “I love your hair, by the way. I wish mine looked like that.” 

I decided that I was going to kill her. 

“Right,” says Mica, pushing her hand down. “We just thought that, y’know, since we’re all volunteers, that maybe we should get to know each other. We all have guts. We all have at least a semi-talent. We could make a really good team.” 

“I saw you at the axe station,” says Rosalyn. “That’s my weapon of choice, so I was just looking over there, and you’re basically a natural.” That’s just a bold-faced lie. “You’ve never picked an axe up before, right?” 

I nod. 

“What’s your weapon of choice, 4?” Rosalyn asks, taking a sip of water. 

“I don’t – ”

“You don’t have one, huh?” Circus exclaims. “You sure about that one, 4?” 

“Weren’t you a volunteer?” asks Hardon. “If you’re not good at anything, then you could have just stayed home.” They all laugh, and I force a smile. 

It’s not that I can’t handle a weapon. I taught Ridley to spearfish. In fact, I taught most of my peers to spearfish. I learned how to handle a sword in combat training. I was third in my class across all combat areas, and when it came to spear throwing, I was first. All things considered; Ridley would die in the first ten minutes of these games. It’s much more likely that 4 brings home a victory (or at least puts up a fight) this year now that I’m the tribute. I just don’t want to tell them anything. Their intentions are so far from good that I’m amazed that I’m still sitting here. But I have an inkling that this could help me. 

“Wait, so have you been on a boat?” asks Circus, and Hardon smacks her. “What?” she hisses at him. I think of the boat, with Ridley, fearing for our lives. I think of our pact. 

“Yeah, I’ve been on a boat,” I say. 

“What’s it like?” Circus rests her chin on her hands, eyes wide. 

“Wet,” I tell her. 

They all laugh. I try to laugh along, but it sounds forced. Afraid. So I keep talking. “The Peacekeepers drive the boat. We just man the traps and the fishing poles.” I pause before saying, “They always had me on the spear, though. When the really big fish are too heavy to lift, I’d spear them and bring them up.” 

Their eyes all light up. Circus nods at Hardon, who nods at Mica, who nods at Rosalyn. It’s scary how simultaneous their movements are, but I try not to think too much into it. 

“So, Angler,” says Rosalyn. 

“We know that 4 is already a Career district,” says Circus. She reaches her hand into my hair again. I stare at her. “And since you’re a volunteer –”

“We figured you’d maybe want to be apart of our ally group,” says Mica. They all nod enthusiastically, like I’m a puppy or something. 

“Actually, we were only thinking about that,” Mica continues. “But I personally think it’d be cool if you tagged along, just for a little bit.” He grins.

That is what flips a switch in my brain, and I understand what they’re trying to do. Keep me contained within their group so I’m not a threat later on, and then I am the first one to go. They’ll kill me the second the tribute pool starts thinning out. I don’t know if I want that. 

“Well-” I start to say, but then they’re ringing the bell and telling us to come back out onto the training floor. Thank God. 

I stand up, and Mica grabs my arm, looking at me. 

“Think about it,” he says. 

I nod, pull my arm free, and I am back on the training floor. 

I consider my next move carefully. I don’t know what I want to do. I rack my brain for ideas.

Okay. If they want me, they want me for a reason – maybe they predict sponsorship, because of my look. Circus’ repeated commentary on my hair. Mica staring at me at the opening ceremonies. Maybe they genuinely see something in me, in my story, and they want to milk that for all it’s worth. An ally’s sponsorship is your sponsorship, too. Refusing to share what you receive has had fatal consequences in the past. Maybe now that I mentioned my spearfishing, maybe now they want to see how long it’s worth keeping me around. One thing is blatantly clear to me, however; if I refuse, I’m dead. I’m dead because now they know I have at least an inkling of talent in me, and they’ll try and kill me as soon as they get the chance if I go off on my own. Hunter is better than the hunted, after all. And to be with them means I can take my pickings of weapons at the Cornucopia. Maybe they’ll even save a spear for me, and then I’ll be able to defend myself when I leave the group. I’ll have food in an environment that I don’t understand. Yes, joining their pack is a good idea. But I still don’t know what station to pick. 

I don’t want to seem disposable. I want them to see that I have skill. I want them to see that I can be a killer. I want them to see that I am good enough to keep around, at least for a few days. I spot the rack of spears across the room, and I walk towards the station. 

I admire the spears. I look at the racks longingly, wallowing in their glimpse of home. My stomach turns over in grief, and the homesickness is back. I feel trapped in sorrow as I finger the tip of the blade. 

Think, Angler. Think. 

You want to get home? This is how you get there.

I straighten my spine and select a spear that is about the same size as the ones I used back home. This station is empty, so I just program what I want – I ask for a high difficulty course, praying that I’m not overestimating my skill level. I step forward. Shoulders back, Angler. They’re just fish, Angler. Big, yellow, computer-generated fish. 

The first one comes up behind me, and I strike him between his ribs, and he shatters into holographic bits. I pull the spear back and check my corners, and suddenly there’s a yellow axe flying at my head, so I tuck and roll out of the way, locating the perpetrator up on the second level. He runs along the edge of the level, and I aim for the foot, so he will fall forward, and I can retrieve my spear. It hits its mark, and he topples, and I run, grab my spear, and plant it square in his chest. I glance behind me and there’s another one, coming at me with a knife. I butt him in the head with other end of the spear, spin the weapon around, and pierce him through the neck. I look at my blind spot, and pivot to prepare for the next one, who appears from the floor, unarmed, running away from me. I glance behind me before going after that one, and there’s somebody else, this one armed, so I dig my spear into where I guess his eye should be. Once he disintegrates, I pull it out and look for the other hologram. He is still running across the floor, but very far away from me now. I breathe in, out, then throw. 

It strikes him in his lower back, and he collapses, defeated. With this, the door makes a shkk noise and slides open. There is the ringing of a bell and an airy female voice that says, “Completed”. I can’t hide the grin that spreads across my face. 

I look out of the chamber, and I see tributes, paused in combat, or in study, or stealing glances towards me from the middle of obstacle courses. Mouths agape. There stands Mica, next to the trainer.

“Damn, 4,” he says as I walk out of the chamber. “How about that alliance, then?” 

I nod, dropping the grin. 

“Why not?” I tell him, and he claps me on the back. 

“Welcome to the careers, District 4,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> the last time i posted an oc insert i was eleven years old and it did not end up well so i hope you guys like this


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